The Church Around the World

The Church Around the World

Church's duty to spread the Faith

Acknowledging 'a growing confusion about the Church's
missionary mandate,' the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith (CDF) released a 19-page document on 14 December strongly
defending the right and duty of all Catholics to spread the
faith.

The document states at the outset (quoting Pope John Paul II),
'Every person has the right to hear the Good News.' For
Catholics, the CDF adds, 'This right implies the
corresponding duty to evangelise.'

The Catholic Church has been criticised in recent years for
efforts to attract new believers. The Moscow patriarchate has
complained bitterly about 'proselytism' in Russia while
in India, militant Hindus have charged that missionaries undermine
the country's culture with their conversion campaigns.

Some theologians have suggested that the Church should recognise
the equal merits of other religions, but the CDF has issued
warnings about the works of some Catholic theologians who have
taken that line.

In a detailed answer to such views, the CDF affirms that while
Catholics should respect believers of other faiths, and should
never engage in coercion or manipulation, the faithful still must
do their best to spread the truths of the Gospel, and encourage
others to enter the Catholic Church.

At a Vatican press conference introducing the new document,
Cardinal Francis Arinze, the prefect of the Congregation for Divine
Worship, remarked, 'Indeed if a Christian did not try to
spread the Gospel by sharing the excelling knowledge of Jesus
Christ with others, we could suspect that Christian either of lack
of total conviction on the faith, or of selfishness and laziness in
not wanting to share the full and abundant means of salvation with
his fellow human beings.'

In a passage that seemed to answer the complaints of the Russian
Orthodox Church, the CDF issued a special caution to missionaries
working in places where other Christian denominations are strongly
entrenched. In those societies, the document says, Catholic
evangelists should show 'true respect for the tradition and
spiritual riches of such countries as well as a sincere spirit of
cooperation.'

Catholic World News

Benedict XVI advises caution on climate change

Benedict XVI has cautioned against extremism on climate change,
advising that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm
evidence and not on dubious ideology.

His remarks, deriving from his annual message for World Peace
Day, titled 'The Human Family, A Community of Peace'
and released on 1 January, were, according to a London Daily
Mail report, conveyed to delegates from 190 countries meeting
in Bali in December for UN climate change talks.

Benedict suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting
the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were
nothing more than scare-mongering.

While some concerns may be valid it was vital that the
international community based its policies on science rather than
the dogma of the environmentalist movement.

The world, he said, needed to care for the environment but not
to the point where the welfare of animals and plants was given a
greater priority than that of mankind.

'It is important', he continued, 'for
assessments in this regard to be carried out prudently, in dialogue
with experts and people of wisdom, uninhibited by ideological
pressure to draw hasty conclusions, and above all with the aim of
reaching agreement on a model of sustainable development capable of
ensuring the well-being of all while respecting environmental
balances.'

Archbishop Hart to priests: be at 'one' with the Church

In his address at a meeting of the Melbourne Council of Priests
on 11 December 2007, Archbishop Denis Hart referred to a recent petition
(including a call for women priests) that had been circulated - and
even promoted - in a number of parishes. He also commented on
Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book and urged unity with the universal
Church on liturgy.

The following are extracts from his address.

'Recently we have heard a number of discordant voices
pleading for a vision of the Church, which is not that of Jesus
Christ and not that of our Holy Father and the Bishops. In our
Diocese and its constituent parishes I believe you need to be one
with me in promoting only those things which are consonant with the
teaching and discipline of the Church, not allowing to be promoted
in any way in parishes or in bulletins anything which is contrary
to that.

'Let me give three examples:

'Recently the Collins/Purcell petition has been seeking to
present to the Australian Bishops a request concerning the criteria
for ordination to the priesthood. None of these matters are the
competency of the bishops, but pertain to the Holy See. Some of them
are directly contrary to the declaration of Pope John Paul II that
the Catholic Church does not have the capacity to ordain women to
the priesthood.

'When Paul Collins and Frank Purcell wrote to me at the
end of October, I indicated to them that I could not endorse either
the petition or the Camberwell Civic Centre gathering.

'I used these words: 'While acknowledging the challenges we
face, in the provision of priests, the Archdiocese of Melbourne now
and in the future, will remain totally faithful to the dispositions
of the Holy See concerning who may be ordained to the priesthood. We
will continue vigorous promotion of vocations and accept the
assistance of priests from other countries in our time of need.

''We remain totally committed to celibate priesthood as
the norm for the Latin Rite.

''I would also wish to indicate that it is not within the
competence of any bishop to derogate from the provisions of the
Universal Church. Therefore to this extent your idea of a petition
is misleading and will I fear lead to inevitable frustration on the
part of the petitioners.'

'Secondly, a number of the assertions in Bishop Geoffrey
Robinson's recent book concerning Original Sin, Ordination, Divorce
and Remarriage, the Papacy and Sexual Morality, will in due time, I
am sure, be judged by the Church. Grave harm is caused if an
impression is created among the faithful that the Church teaching
in these serious matters is in a state of flux or under review. Our
mission is to teach and live constantly what the Magisterium
teaches.

'Thirdly, in a recent issue of the [Brisbane] Catholic
Leader, Elizabeth Harrington in response to Redemptionis
Sacramentum and the 2002 General Instruction of the Roman
Missal, which has just become available in the approved
Australian version in English, argues the outdated 70s proposition
that all that is needed in liturgy is acting according to
principles established not by the Church but by the liturgical
intelligentsia of the time.

'Faithfulness on the other hand requires that because of
the strong connection between liturgy, faith and doctrine, we
celebrate the liturgy according to the liturgical books and their
General Instructions without variations, except in cases
which the books provide ...

'It is our privilege to form our people according to the
mind of the Church. We give a lead by our faithfulness in what we
promote in our parishes, in the way we preach and teach the whole
of Church doctrine. Now we take hold of the General
Instruction in English to renew our practices in celebrating
Mass according to the mind of the Church using the texts which the
Church provides without omission or innovation, so as to lead our
people to authentic Catholic faith which the liturgy expresses so
well ...'.

Catholic Communications (Melbourne)

150th anniversary of Lourdes apparitions

A press conference took place in November in the Holy See Press
Office to discuss the program of celebrations organised to mark the
150th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to
Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, in 1858.

Bishop Jacques Perrier of Tarbes and Lourdes indicated that for
the 150th anniversary a Jubilee Year will be held, due to run from
8 December 2007, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, to 8
December 2008, and 'to take place within the context of the
new evan- gelisation.'

Regarding the possibility of a pilgrimage by the Pope to Lourdes
for the 150th anniversary, Bishop Perrier confirmed that Benedict
XVI would visit 'though we still do not know the exact
date.'

Bishop Perrier then indicated how on 11 February 2008, Feast of
Our Lady of Lourdes and World Day of the Sick, the first of the 18
apparitions of the Virgin to Bernadette will be commemorated (the
last apparition took place on 16 July 1858, Feast of Our Lady of
Mount Carmel). On 18 February 2008, Feast of St Bernadette, the
first of the 15 consecutive apparitions will be remembered.

The anniversary of the 16th apparition will be marked on 25
March. 'On that day, Feast of the Annunciation,' said
Bishop Perrier, 'the Lady finally pronounced her name: I am
the Immaculate Conception.'

It is expected that an estimated eight million pilgrims will
visit Lourdes for the Jubilee Year.

Catholic News Agency

Vatican Archbishop on liturgical reform

Sri Lankan Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, the secretary of the
Congregation for Divine Worship, renewed his defence of Summorum
Pontificum - and his sharp criticism of some bishops who have
resisted the Pope's motu proprio - in an interview with the
Fides news service.

The Pope's call for broader use of the traditional Latin Mass
was not merely an effort to achieve reconciliation with the Society
of St Pius X, 'but also a sign for the whole Church with
regard to the safeguarding of certain theological-disciplinary
principles,' Archbishop Ranjith told Fides.

'It appears to me,' he said, 'that the Pope is
anxious to correct the tendency, visible in certain circles, to see
the Council [Vatican II] as a break with the past and a new
beginning.' He pointed out that the teachings of Vatican II
themselves offer no justification for that attitude.

Vatican II called for reform of the liturgy, but that reform
'must also be faithful to all that went before from the
beginning down to our day, nothing excluded.'

Archbishop Ranjith added: 'We are neither the inventors
nor the masters of truth, we are merely those who have received it
and have the duty to safeguard it and hand it on to others É
It follows that respect for Tradition is not our freely taken
choice in the quest for the truth, Tradition is its basis and must
be accepted. Therefore fidelity to tradition is an essential
attitude for the Church.'

In addition to safeguarding Church traditions, Benedict also saw
the motu proprio as a necessary response to widespread liturgical
abuses, the archbishop said. He noted that he, too, had 'seen
how arbitrary deformations of the liturgy caused deep pain to
individuals totally rooted in the faith of the Church.'

Catholic World News

State of Jesuit order: Vatican concern

The top Vatican official who deals with religious orders,
Cardinal Franc Rode, addressed the 35th General Congregation of the
Jesuits on 7 January 2008.

Cardinal Rode, installed by Benedict XVI as Prefect of the
Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and
Societies of Apostolic Life, spoke repeatedly about his
'sorrow and anxiety' at the state of the Jesuit order
in terms of infidelity to the teachings of the Church.

'It is with sorrow and anxiety that I see that the
sentire cum ecclesia [to think with the church] of which
your founder frequently spoke is diminishing,' he said.

He also expressed concern at 'a growing distancing from
the Hierarchy' whereas 'the Ignatian spirituality of
apostolic service 'under the Roman Pontiff' does not allow for this
separation. In the Constitutions which he left you, Ignatius ...
wrote 'we must always keep our mind prepared and quick to obey' ...
the Hierarchical Church.'

Addressing specific areas Cardinal Rode said, 'May those
who, according to your legislation, have to oversee the doctrine of
your magazines and publications do so in the light of and according
to the rules for 'sentire cum ecclesia', with love and
respect.'